


Almost

by DarkShadeless



Series: SWTOR - collection [15]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: A+ Parenting, Feelings, Introspection, M/M, Past Abandonment, Sith Culture, all of that is past tense, character pondering what-ifs, despite not wanting to, giving away your child, i guess, not being 'good' enough because you don't have the Force, this is pretty much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 16:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19794319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Sometimes Theron wonders if he should have... asked. Back then, at the beginning that felt like the end. If Yon would have stayed.It doesn't matter, now, but he does wonder.





	Almost

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics in between are from _Ready to Fight_ by Roby Fayer & Tom Gefen.  
> For maximum waterworks, I recommend listening to that song while reading.

_You once said_

_I'll never walk away  
_

* * *

Theron doesn’t like to talk about his teens. He’ll quip and deflect, turn the whole thing into a sardonic joke. Most people will flinch in the face of his gallows humor and leave it be.

His entire early life, his mere _existence_ , is the symptom of problems even he has a rancor of a time putting into words. It’s a long time before he stops looking for the reasons, the how’s and why’s, within himself. He’s not broken. He never was. He… he didn’t turn out the way he was supposed to. And that should have been fine.

But it wasn’t.

Theron doesn’t talk about his teens, he doesn’t talk about how the lines on Master Zho’s face grew deeper and deeper with every year, then every month, in a way that had nothing to do with age. About how they _didn’t_ talk about it. Not while it was happening, while with every day it was growing more and more obvious that he didn’t have access to the Force and never would, and… not later.

What was there to talk about?

He argued, of course he did. He was a teenager, for void’s sake. But they never _talked_. Not about that.

Theron can still feel the weight of Master Zho’s hand on his shoulder some days. Just like that day, when he left him at the Coruscant Center for Homeless Teenagers. ‘ _May the Force be with you, boy._ ’

Theron almost laughed, would have if his throat hadn’t been too clogged to make a sound. Wasn’t that the whole problem?

That it wasn’t.

* * *

_I'll never sail away,_

_I'll never go_

* * *

Her son is perfect. A perfect little angel.

From the moment he is put into her arms, Shansho knows this with the bone-deep, heart stopping certainty of any mother.

He’s such a happy child, always cheerful and fully invested in making everyone he cares for equally so. It’s what she names him for, her Aki, her little ray of sunshine.

Only… he’s not hers, in the end, is he? He never was.

Shansho thinks nothing of it at first. Every child would cry when their mother is upset. Children know such things. If her son finds her misplaced hairpins unasked for, he must have hid them for a treasure hunt. He does love the colourful crystals so well.

Maybe she left the jewellery box open. He’s so precocious.

He- he doesn’t have the Force. He doesn’t have to. She doesn’t. Not much, all Shansho has ever managed is a knack for intuition. A little bit of empathy.

Karun, the man who fathered her son but isn’t his father because warriors can pledge themselves to no one and she wouldn’t want him to besides, had the gift but that means nothing. Her own birth mother- It means nothing.

When Aki is four he makes his toys fly for the first time. As it turns out, levitation comes to him as easily as empathy and intuition ever did.

The Force sings under his clumsy touch and Shansho’s heart breaks clean in two.

It’s an honor, to be so blessed.

Her son will climb farther than she can even dream. If he is strong enough, if he is smart enough, if he is quick enough and true enough, he will be a legend. ( _If, if, if. If he lives._ )

His power will be their sword and their shield. The Force will guide him the way it never has her.

That is the mantra that Shansho holds in her mind. Every step on the riverstone path is torture.

The stones are black, as black as the power in their veins, shimmering in the sun like spilled oil.

“Mama?” Aki is looking up at her with wide, amber eyes and now that she knows what to look for ( _now that she is no longer closing her eyes and ears to it_ ) she can feel him push against her shields to touch upon her feelings, like a kitten batting at its first mouse.

Her son ( _never hers, never_ ) is a small, warm weight against her chest, growing heavier the farther they go. It has been quite a ways from the village. She can’t bear to put him down.

As always he is more patient with his mother’s quirks than a child of his age should be.

_It’s an honor. It’s an honor to be so blessed._

If he is lucky he will forget her. You can’t truly miss what you don’t remember.

* * *

_And I was there standing outside your door_  
_Waiting for you to show me how to stay_

* * *

They dance around each other. From that tense moment on Manaan where Theron is half-sure he’s about to get skewered by the _Empire’s Wrath_ , Yon pulls on him in ways a Sith really shouldn’t.

None of his defence mechanisms work.

Yon slides right in, with his own wicked sense of humor, inappropriate enthusiasm when it comes to tackling a mission (any mission, dear Force is this how his handlers felt when Theron did the same?) and surprisingly enduring patience. He flirts like he fights, catching Theron off-guard when he least expects it but in the _good_ way. It's not fair. It's just not _fair_.

When Theron crawls back from a face-to-mask interview with _kriffing Revan,_ furious, furious at Lana, at the galaxy, and most of all at _himself_ for being such a damned idiot and trusting a _Sith_ and- and he still- he wants to believe him when Yon says he didn’t know... he knows he has it bad.

That’s the real reason he pushes through that heart-to-heart, not only because he’s pretty sure that if he accepts a single ounce of concern from _anyone_ he’ll have a breakdown but… Yon says he didn’t know and he- he can’t. He can’t have that talk. Because he wants- he wants-

_Dear gods, I’m such an idiot._

But he _should have had it_. That dawns on Theron much too late. Years later. He should have- he should have sat him down. Right then. Or, or on Yavin. Yavin would’ve been good. **_Sometime_**.

He couldn't have known what would happen but he was already familiar with conversations that happened never instead of too late.

They dance around each other, joking and flirting and every time Theron shoves Yon takes a step back. And they start again.

The Wrath is a _Sith_ , he’s _the_ Sith in some ways, he’d be on a kriffing first name basis with Darth Marr if the guy had a first name that wasn’t ‘Darth’ but… all of what they follow now, all of what Yon scrapes together to unite them against Zakuul? It’s already there.

Senya and Koth have no idea how much they really needed him, can’t have it. Not because Yon killed Vitiate when no one else could. Not because he makes a great symbol to rally their forces around, or because he's one of the best military commanders of their time. He is something else, too, _has_ something else none of them have. (Apart from Theron's heart. He stole it right under his nose and he never noticed until it disappeared into Zakuulan space.)

Theron watches his lover glue the Alliance together with spit and goodwill and… sometimes, for a second, he’s back there, on Yavin.

Satele and Marr got their people there but they weren't what made their victory possible. They weren't what forged enemies into allies, however temporarily.

Yon caught him out in the rainforest, after it was all over and everyone was packing up. Theron has no idea what he said. Made a joke, probably. (That’s a lie. He knows what he said.)

_You know, you’re taking this better than I thought you would._

_What did you think I would do?_

_Eh, I don’t know. Bribed me, or something. ('Threatened me' he implies and Yon steps back, as he always does.)  
_

_(Ask me to stay. I expected you to ask me to stay. I was prepared to walk away but I didn't think you'd make it easy. Why did you?)_

He should have sat him down.

 _He_ should have asked.

Would it have changed anything? Probably not. Yon was always too stubborn for his own good and he is attached to the Empire in ways Theron has never been able to make heads or tails of. He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t have said yes.

But sometimes he wonders.

Not as often now that they have him back. Not when he can walk right up to him and wrap his arms around him, no matter who will see. Theron could kiss him in the middle of the command center. Right now.

Maybe he should. His life has enough what-ifs as it is.

He's not walking away this time. Never again.

* * *

_Home is everywhere your heart is_  
_I can be that home if you please_  
_Walk with me, and we'll be gone, dear!_

_Honey, these arms that once held you are ready to fight_


End file.
